I'll Never Leave You
by propertyofjanerizzoli
Summary: At age five, Jane makes a promise to Maura that she intends to keep for the rest of her life. An eight-part series of short ficlets about Jane and Maura's relationship from childhood to adulthood.
1. Chapter 1

The winter of 1982 marked the turning point in Maura's childhood; when the yelling stopped and the crying began. She was only five years old at the time, but she already knew her home life was far from ideal in comparison to her best friend Jane's home life. What Maura overheard, she could never tell anyone, even Jane, or so her mother made her promise so they could continue to put up a facade. They'd attend social functions as a family and act as if nothing had happened, but the moment they arrived at home, Maura would lie in her bed and fall asleep to the sound of her parents arguing about some woman that left lipstick stains on her dad's collar.

He was out of the house just days later without so much as a goodbye until Maura ran out the front door and stopped him from getting into his car. "Daddy, don't leave me," she cried. "We're your family. Don't you love us?"

He kissed her forehead and said, "I'll see you soon, Princess," but there were weeks of crying and clutching her teddy bear close to her at night before Maura realized it was a false promise and she'd never see her dad again.

When the realization hit her, Jane was there with her little arms wrapped around Maura in a tight embrace. "I'll never leave you, Maura," Jane promised while Maura's tears were wetting the shoulder of her sweatshirt.


	2. Chapter 2

Jane remained her best friend until the summer of 1989 when they shared their first kiss on the top of a ferris wheel located on the boardwalk near the beach house Maura's mom and stepdad rented to celebrate Maura's 13th birthday.

"Will you be my girlfriend or something more than my friend?" Jane asked, still nervous to say the word 'girlfriend' although she fantasized about Maura on a regular basis.

"Your girlfriend?"

"It doesn't matter what we call it," Jane smiled at her. "I just want to be able to kiss you like that again."

"Will your parents think it's wrong?" Maura asked worriedly. "I don't want them to stop us from seeing each other."

Jane held Maura's hands in hers. "You mean more to me than anyone's opinion and I'll never leave you. We'll always find a way."

From that moment on she was Jane's girlfriend and there was nothing Jane wouldn't do to protect her from heartache.


	3. Chapter 3

Maura was sixteen when she was called fat for the first time in the autumn of 1992 and Jane watched helplessly as her girlfriend slowly deteriorated. There was nothing she could say to get Maura to eat and no words that would take the physical and emotional pain away. Week after week, she watched as Maura's weight dropped and she refused to accept the help that was offered to her until she blacked out at school and was taken to the hospital.

"Please don't leave me, Jane," Maura attempted to say, but her weak condition enabled her to say nothing more than a barely audible mumbling. "I don't want to die."

Maura's hospital bed was meant for only one person but Jane took it upon herself to cuddle with her girlfriend purely for the physical reassurance that she'd never leave her. "You're not going to die," Jane said as she wrapped her arms around her just as she did when they were five. "You're going to get better, Maura, and I'll do whatever you need me to do to help you. We have our whole lives ahead of us and I'm going to be by your side."

"You'll never leave me?"

"I'll never leave you, Maura."


	4. Chapter 4

It wasn't until the spring of 1994 when Maura thought she was comfortable enough for Jane to see her body. They were in a hotel room after prom and Maura stood in front of the full-length mirror, staring at what she perceived to be flaws until Jane wrapped her arms around her waist from behind.

"Can we make love with the lights off?" Maura asked. "I'm not as ready for you to see me as I thought."

"We can do whatever you want to do," Jane reassured her.

She revelled in the skin-to-skin contact and the feeling of Jane inside her for the first time. "Turn the light on," Maura whispered. "I'm ready." Maura expected her insecurity to linger, but she was too caught up in seeing Jane's body for the first time to care about her own insecurities. "You're so beautiful, Jane."

"You are," Jane insisted. "I want to kiss every inch of you."

"We have time for you to do so."

"You're so eager all of a sudden," Jane said as she playfully kissed Maura's shoulders. "You know, this doesn't have to change anything."

"It already has," Maura said as she tucked a strand of dark, curly hair behind Jane's ear. "I've been wanting this type of intimacy with you and I know you've wanted it with me, but we waited until we were both comfortable. Not once did I feel pressured by you and that made me want you even more."

"Maura," Jane blushed.

"I'm in love with you."

"I'm in love with you, too, Maura. I always will be."

They fell asleep holding onto each other and, that night, Jane fell even more in love with the girl she'd never leave.


	5. Chapter 5

Jane and Maura were about to turn twenty-eight when same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts in 2004 and, although she had already considered herself married to Maura, they went to the courthouse to sign their marriage license within days of same-sex marriage being legalized.

"You said marriage was a formality," Maura reminded her as they looked at the marriage license Jane was holding.

"I changed my mind," Jane pointed out. "The law now recognizes the lifelong commitment we've made to each other. You're officially my wife and I want to celebrate. Once the paperwork goes through, you'll be Dr. Rizzoli. I like the way that sounds."

"Dr. Rizzoli is now officially married to Detective Rizzoli," Maura said as she straddled her wife. "How do you want to celebrate?"

"Like this," Jane smiled. "But with less clothing, preferably none."

"That's not what I meant," Maura laughed. "Do you want a wedding?"

Before she could respond, they heard the sound of Jane's phone ringing, and with it came the worries of being a detective's wife. "Rizzoli," she answered.

"Promise you'll come home to me."

"I always do," Jane said as she grabbed her blazer from the coat hook on their wall. "Pretty soon, you'll be out there with me."

But Jane didn't come home to her that night and Maura was left wondering what had happened until she received a call from Jane's partner, Detective Korsak, saying that there had been an accident.

Maura feared the worst as she rushed to the hospital. Her wife put herself in danger every time she went to work and a night like this had been Maura's fear since the moment Jane first told her she wanted to be a cop.

"I'm here to see my wife," Maura said as calmly as she could to the woman at the front desk, although she felt like crying.

"Maura!" Jane called out.

She turned around to see her wife with her right arm in a cast and a sling. "It was just a broken arm," Maura said as she carefully hugged Jane so as not to hurt her arm. "I thought you had been—"

"Don't even think about that," Jane interrupted her. "I just had Korsak call you to see if you could drive me home. I didn't want to show up in the middle of the night with a broken arm and worry you."

"So you had him say there's been an accident?" Maura asked. "How is that better?"

"He was going to tell you not to worry and that I just broke my arm, but you hung up and rushed over here before he could," Jane said after kissing her wife on the forehead. "I'm okay, Maura. I said I'd never leave you and I never will. Besides, it's just my right arm. I still have my good arm to hold you with."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Thank you for your reviews and sharing Jane and Maura's journey through life with me. :)**

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Jane and Maura's first child was born prematurely on a chilly autumn evening just two months after Maura's 30th birthday. Jane had never expected childbirth to be as quick and easy as it was on TV and in movies, but the difficult labor Maura experienced was something Jane could never fathom until she saw it happening before her very eyes.

The pain, the amount of blood loss after the baby had been delivered, and the possibility of losing both her wife and their baby was something that had never crossed Jane's mind when she and Maura started planning to have a family. Their son was supposed to be placed in Maura's arms after she gave birth and Jane had every intention of kissing her wife and telling her how proud she was and how happy she's made her while they gazed adoringly at their baby boy, but instead she sat in the waiting room with her mom and Constance while her wife was in surgery and their son was in the NICU.

"I wasn't supposed to leave her," Jane kept telling them. "I promised I'd never leave her and now I've left him, too."

"Janie, you didn't leave them. It's out of your hands right now," Angela said as she held her crying daughter. It was the first time she had seen Jane cry since she was a little girl and it pained her to see her daughter hurting so much.

_Why couldn't it be me instead? _But regardless of how many times she wished she could switch places with Maura, she was the one in the waiting room and all she could do was be there for her wife and baby during their recovery.

It was a month before they were able to bring their son home: a month of visits to the NICU, monitoring his progress, and reassuring each other that it wouldn't be long before they could bring him home. She had her Maura and, after the most nerve-racking month of her life, they were lying on their bed with Baby Rizzoli nestled comfortably in between his two mommies.

Maura placed a kiss on his forehead. "I don't want to let him out of my sight."

"We have to, eventually," Jane smiled. "I'm sure he's not going to be too happy about us constantly watching him when he's on a date or at some college party."

"I don't want to think about him in college."

"And I don't want to think about what it's going to cost us," Jane quipped. "But right now we have our beautiful baby boy and each other. Maura, we're our own little family now. I have the two of you here with me and I never thought I could be this happy."

Maura gazed adoringly at their newborn baby fast asleep in between them. "He was worth it."

"I know we said we want more children someday, but I don't want you to go through that again, Maur."

"Jane, I—"

"You gave us Matthew," Jane began. "I want to have our next baby."

"But you'll be on desk duty," Maura pointed out.

"Then I'll be at a desk. I don't care," Jane told her. "I just want to give you the big family you've always dreamed of having."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: We've reached the second to the last chapter. This one is a little longer than the others but I couldn't resist the idea of Jane and Maura with teenagers. :)**

* * *

Jane and Maura were now age fifty when their twins were getting ready to attend senior prom. Their eldest son Matthew was a sophomore at BCU, his mother's cherished alma mater and, although he still lived in Boston, his weekend visits were becoming less frequent. Jane and Maura knew he was a young adult and he had his own life to lead, but it was hard to let him go and at the end of summer they'd be losing their twins to a school on the west coast.

After the difficult labor Maura had with Matthew, Jane kept the promise she made to give birth to their next Rizzoli baby and when the doctor told them Jane was pregnant with twins, they felt as if their family was now complete. Maura was excited for two mini versions of Jane and, with each passing year, she saw how much Josh and Jordan became even more like her wife from their unruly hair as children to their sarcasm and rough around the edges persona as teenagers. As they grew up, they looked more like Jane, which made it even harder for Maura to let go of them.

"Ma, I hate this dress," Jordan said as she entered the living room.

"It hates you, too," Josh responded, following behind her. "Not that it matters, Jordan. It'll probably be on the floor of some sleazy motel in a couple of hours."

Jordan turned around to face her brother. "Why didn't I eat you in the womb? I had nine months to eat you."

"We're fraternal twins. You couldn't have eaten me," Josh laughed. "If you weren't such a dumbass at biology, you'd know I was in an entirely separate placenta."

"I didn't eat you in the womb, but so help me I _will _eat you during the zombie apocalypse," Jordan glared at him.

"Your zombie ass isn't coming near me," Josh smirked. "I'm gonna have a sweet crossbow or a sword."

"Hey!" Jane yelled to get their attention. "No one will be eating anyone. I can't believe I even have to say that. Jordan, you chose that dress and you loved it last night and every night since you bought it. Josh, your tie is crooked and we need to fix it before we take pictures."

Jane and Maura had wanted to take pictures of the two of them before their dates arrived. They had always imagined a nice brother and sister picture with their twins looking happy and excited about prom, but what they got was the two of them goofing around.

When the doorbell rang, Jane ran to the door so she could get there before her daughter. She opened the door to find two tall, somewhat gangly teenage boys who were identical except for one had shaggy blonde hair and a lip ring while the other was clean-cut and preppy-looking. "Trent," Jane said while looking at the boy with shaggy hair. "I can't believe your parents actually got you to wear a suit."

"You both look very handsome," Maura added.

Trent and his twin brother Chad had become a staple at the Rizzoli house ever since the two of them started dating Josh and Jordan. They were well-behaved, well-mannered boys and Jane and Maura got a kick out of the fact that their twins were dating another set of twins.

They took as many pictures as they could of both couples in the living room and outside near the limo and even more pictures when their other friends arrived before Jane used the camera on her phone to take a picture of her kissing her wife.

"Ma," Jordan groaned. "No one wants to see that."

"We have the house to ourselves tonight," Jane whispered in Maura's ear, which made Maura blush in return.

"Have fun at prom," Maura told their twins. "Be back by two, maybe even three."

"It's not going to be so bad," Jane said before she pulled Maura on top of her on the couch. "All three of our kids will be in college and we'll start a new chapter in our lives, just the two of us. I will finally have you all to myself and it'll be the way it was before we had kids except you're even more beautiful now."

"Stop," Maura blushed. She was just about to kiss Jane when they heard their front door open.

"Ma! Mom!" Their eldest son Matthew called out. "I'm home for the weekend and I brought laundry!"


End file.
